A World to Explore

Archive for June 5th, 2013

NOTO, SICILY, ITALY–Our last stop of the day on this International Bryozoology Association field trip was on the southeastern coast of Sicily just north of Syracuse at Scala Greca. There are several very small bays here which have been used for fishing boats since very ancient times. The whote rock is the Calcari di Siracusa (Miocene).

The rock is made predominantly made of little algal and bryozoan spheres called rhodoliths. They rolled around on a shallow, warm seafloor and are quite common in some parts of the tropics today (although with fewer bryozoans).

This part of Sicily was an invasion area by the Allies in World War II. This grim German pillbox overlooking the coast is a reminder of those times. More on this later.

Finally, I wish to record part of my dinner this evening! I ate every piece of octopus in my large shell bowl. I saw it as a duty.

NOTO, SICILY, ITALY–Our second stop of the day on this International Bryozoology Association field trip was in an unimpressive ditch (above) near Megara. But, of course, there is paleontological gold here: an assemblage of extremely well-preserved marine fossils.

Colleague Andrej Ernst is examining a layer of shells extending the length of the drainage ditch.

Her are some beautiful pectinid bivalves (scallops) with the treat for me: abundant serpulid worm tubes. There is an extensive sclerobiont (hard substrate dwelling) community on these shells.

Turritellid gastropods (snails) are extremely common in this assemblage. Note that several of these specimens have small holes drilled in them by predatory gastropods. We found naticid gastropods here too, which were probably the culprits.

This mother lode of fossils was guarded by a herd of horned beasts. This one had a bell on it, so I assumed it was the most dangerous and stayed far away. (Love this new zoom lens!)

NOTO, SICILY, ITALY–The first stop on our International Bryozoology Association field trip today was a newly-opened quarry near Cugni di Rio in the dry southeastern countryside of Sicily, a view of which is above. New quarries are always interesting to geologists — a new view of the Earth’s bones.

This is a portion of the quarry wall with the inevitable volcaniclastic unit of ash and marine sediments shown as the greenish layered unit above and below limestones dated as Tortonian (Upper Miocene). On top of the ash you can see what look like tubes sticking out of the brownish layer of sediment.

When that brownish layer is exposed as the underside of the bedding plane, it looks like this. These branching features are infilled tunnels made by marine shrimp. The walls of the tubes are ornamented by pellets placed there by the shrimp in their frenetic activity. Combining these pellets with the branching style we can place this trace fossil in the venerable ichnogenus Ophiomorpha.

This is a closer view showing the branched galleries and maybe a bit of the pitted surface showing where the pellets were attached. These tunnels are completely filled, so we refer to this preservation as full relief.

I know, I know, I should be recording the bryozoans from this stop, but they were far from photogenic!